7 Essential Keys to Switching Your Website ON!

Your website is in fact a powerful 24/7 sales and marketing machine! When designed and structured correctly, an effective website promotes your products, services and brand values to a vast audience, moving them inexorably toward a transaction ‘Sales’. However, the online marketing landscape is shifting so rapidly that most sites fail miserably at being any more than an ‘online brochure’ – which does NOT in any way guarantee sales!

Here’s a checklist of 7 essential keys to ensure your site is working for YOUR business.

1. If it’s not Fresh, it’s Failing

Ensure your web content is current and relevant to your primary audience. Freshen up text descriptions, images and video content, delete outdated pages and make sure contact details are still accurate. Most newer website systems allow you to easily update your content through a simple ‘dashboard’ interface (like FaceBook)… no geek required! If your website is so old that you can’t access the content directly, you’ve got a problem.

2. Flash in the Pan?

Recent versions of browsers and newer devices – especially mobile ones – are not friendly to animated Flash images that were popular in the past. If you’ve used Flash elements in your website, these are likely to show up as a ‘missing items’, which obviously will have a negative impact on your marketing & branding efforts. HTML5 and Javascript provide all the animation you should need, but they require a stable website platform to display.

3. A Balancing Act

The most effective websites are those that incorporate clean, functional design as well as being fully optimised for Google and other search engines. A site that looks good but no one can find is as pointless as one that ranks well but doesn’t convey your brand values and unique proposition – thus doesn’t convert visitors into customers.

4. Think MOBILE – your audience is!

Growth figures for mobile computing on smart phones and tablets are astonishing! People now want to access information on the go, any time of day or night. If your website is not configured for mobile display, you’re losing valuable opportunities to promote your products, services and offerings. Talk to us about it; there are low-cost options to adapt your site for ‘upwardly mobile’ audiences.

5. The Power of Optimisation

The importance of search engine optimisation (SEO) – including key words and phrases embedded into navigation, headlines, body-text, metadata, tags, references, photos and even video content – can’t be stressed enough! Google and other search engines precisely aggregate your content to determine the rank (position) your site will appear when people are searching for you. Our expert SEO team can assist you for superior results.

Content doesn’t even have to be yours, or original, just RELEVANT to your audience! There are various free apps available to legally ‘copy-paste’ other experts’ information into your website and blog, which in turn drives traffic to you as an authority. Ask us how!

7. Go Easy on your Audience

As the online world continues to explode, statistics indicate a growing ‘web overload syndrome’ is occurring which means people are less likely to spend any time on your site unless the experience is attractive, engaging, entertaining, relevant – and delivers tangible value to them instantly. If you’re selling products, FEATURE those on the home page and express-link to more information & purchase options. If your company offers services, TELL THE STORY using video or simple animation – which has been proven to increase viewing and response by a huge percentages.

Here’s a fun video we created for Fishheads, that had a lot of people talking.